Business Development

Origination Credits: I Respectfully Dissent

In a short piece in the ABA Law Journal Friday, Martha Neil quotes a New York Law Journal piece in which it is recommended that origination fees have an expiration date, like a carton of milk. Otherwise, allegedly, having the originator of the business raking in fees year after year creates the "wrong incentives" for everyone else at the firm.

Wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Wrong for three reasons:

First, these fees create a powerful incentive for the originator to work like a dog to help the firm KEEP THE BUSINESS. In a service business, clients need to be constantly resold on the value of the firm. As everyone knows, client retention is at least as important as acquisition. It is much, much cheaper, and therefore much more profitable, to service the daylights out of a client you already have and to keep them happy than to go out and bring in a new one. Origination credits create a powerful incentive to do this, which is good for everyone.

Second, as every CEO knows, you want your salespeople to make a lot of money. The first sign of impending doom for a company is when the bean-counters start looking at who makes what and making the argument that the top salespeople -- the ones who really make it happen -- are making too much money. No, they're not. They have a very difficult job, and what they do is the lifeblood of the company. You want them to make a pile of money. Same with attorneys who manage very big clients. You want them to be fat, happy and well-fed.

The final reason is really nicely put in Rule 28 of a free e-book published by G. L. Hoffman, of What Would Dad Say? The rules is this:

"The sooner you realize that, truly, all good salespeople work for the customer, and not for you, you will understand more about salespeople than 90% of all non-salespeople."

Bingo. By paying origination credit, you are essentially giving the client a voice inside your firm. The partner who receives that credit doesn't work for the firm. He works for the client. Which is exactly how it should be.

Scalia on Marketing: Grasp That Nettle

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting post this morning on Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's new book, "Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges". In the post, Dan Slater of The Journal observed that "This stuff could apply to lawyers, but it could also apply to anyone engaged in the art of persuasion, we thought."

Hey -- isn't that marketing?

The post goes on as follows:

""For starters: One of the things that immediately jumped out at us is the authors’ advice to acknowledge weakness in arguments right up front.

Under the heading: “Yield indefensible terrain — ostentatiously,” they write: “Rarely will all the points, both of fact and law, be in your favor. Openly acknowledge the ones that are against you. In fact, if you’re the appellant, run forth to meet the obvious ones.”

On the topic, the authors quote Frederick Bernays Wiener: “Grasp your nettles firmly. No matter how unfavorable the facts are, they will hurt you more if the court first learns them from your opponent. ... Draw the sting of unpleasant facts by presenting them yourself.”"

Interestingly, someone else who's used the nettle metaphor is David Ogilvy, founder of the Ogilvy advertising agency, who wrote once that "Leaders grasp nettles."

I have a client who's furiously preparing for a pitch -- in this case, they're not a law firm, but an ad agency. They have very deep market and product knowledge, a really impressive leader, and a demonstrated ability to think creatively. They also have a strong personal relationship with at least one person on the client side already, which helps a lot.

However, they have one drawback. They're a small, young agency, and they're going up against two really big agencies. How should they handle this? Well, they really have two options. They can either try to sort of skate over this, which is kind of a fear-driven response, or they can acknowledge it up front, as Scalia advises.

By acknowledging it up front, they can take control of the issue. They can define it, and position it, and present it in the best possible light. First impressions count for a great deal, and by grasping this particular nettle, they will present themselves as confident, professional and in control. Which also counts for a lot. The lesson here, as presented by Scalia, is simple: don't hide weaknesses. They may not be weaknesses at all. What works for appellate advocacy will often also work in marketing.

And if this law thing doesn't work out, Scalia might make an excellent marketer.

Ballard Spahr has a brilliant idea

Larry Bodine's blog and Law.com reported today that Ballard Spahr has done something that I think is just plain brilliant. They have brought on board a person whose full-time job is to simply interview clients, and report her findings to the firm. This is sheer genius.

Client surveys are complex, expensive, and often don't really get at the qualitative issues. Having partners interview clients often doesn't work because a) they're not skilled in interviewing; b) the client is often uncomfortable telling the attorney that his firm has done a mediocre job.

Also, a client interview is not simply a way to receive information. It's also a way to communicate to the client, loud and clear, that you care about their experience, and you take their responses seriously. By hiring someone to do this full-time, Ballard has put their money where their mouth is. This is just plain smart, and an elegant solution to what's often a nasty problem.

One suggestion: if the firm is going to solicit client feedback, it has to put systems in place to actually act on what they learn. In other words, simply getting the feedback isn't enough. It has to make a difference. They have to take the information and do something with it. Receiving feedback and then being perceived as ignoring it is far worse than not asking for it at all.

With that caveat, this is a wonderful idea.

The Single Worst Habit Clients Have

David Maister just posted something very interesting: a question. "What are the top 10 bad habits partners within professional services firms display?" That's easy. They're not proactive.

Steven Covey pointed out the importance of being proactive in his landmark book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He listed proactivity first. He was right.

Marketing and business development are, ultimately, all about creating a vision of the business you want to have, and then reaching out and doing what it takes to make that vision real. In my line of work, this means engaging with your market. It means calling people you don't already know, making presentations with no guarantee of success, and so on. It's about taking initiatives.

Professionals are often very risk-averse people. They're used to solving complex problems within a bounded system. There are certain rules, and processes, and there isn't any model for trying something new, or even trying something at all. So they don't. Or, to use a metaphor, they tend not to be the cue ball, but instead, the ball the cue ball is aimed at.

This is fatal. If I could boil everything I know and teach down into one concept it would be: make something happen. Mr. Covey is right. Do something.

Good branding, bad branding and porn

Seth Godin wrote an interesting post today commenting on what he acidly describes as "dumb branding strategy." Here's part of what he had to say:

Jewelry Central is a really bad brand name. So are Party Land, Computer World, Modem Village, House of Socks and Toupee Town.

It's a bad brand name because Central or Land or World are meaningless. They add absolutely no value to your story, they mean nothing and they are interchangeable. "Here honey, I bought you these cheap earrings at Diamond World!" Not only are they bland, but you can't even remember one over the other. This is the absolute last refuge of a marketer who has absolutely nothing to say and can't even find the guts to stand for what they do. It's just generic.

Where I run into this is in helping clients think about tag lines. Particularly with professional services firms, there isn't much you can do about the actual name of the enterprise: it's the name of the founders. But you do have a chance to present a tag line, and that is where you can brand yourself. Or not. Frequently, what happens is "not." Here are a few examples (some of these are somewhat out of date, but trust me, they illustrate the current landscape nicely anyway):

"Power of Collaboration"
"Forging Results in a New Business Age"
"A Tradition of Innovation"
"Solutions For A Changing World"
"A Source of Strength"

These, and many more like them, beautifully illustrate Godin's point -- bland, forgettable, meaningless and interchangeable.

Now, let's consider our friends in the brave new world of pornography. Setting morality aside, let's look at this industry purely as a business. The adult market is ferociously competitive. They have been on top of every new technical innovation, including the Internet, for years. I have heard, and I believe it's true, that the industry's revenues exceed that of Hollywood's. And, to top it all off, they excel at branding. The names they give their products, and their stars, are memorable, unique, and  usually make it clear exactly what they're promising.  Can there be any doubt as to what a movie called "The Babysitter" is going to be like? Or about?

There are many more examples, which, for obvious reasons, I can't present here. But I'm sure you get the point. The first rule of branding is "Thou shalt not be forgettable." Pornographers get this. Law firms often don't.

An Open Letter to Barton J. Winokur, Chairman of Dechert

Dear Mr. Winokur:

I read in todays WSJ Law Blog, and elsewhere, that due to the slowing real estate market, Dechert initially decided to lay off 13 associates in your real estate practice group. According to stories in the press, you then announced that instead, they would be reassigned to other practice groups instead. I think this is a very bad idea, and I think I have a better one.

First, rest assured that I know personally what it is to be laid off. It's traumatic for everyone involved. I understand that, and the attorneys involved and their families have my empathy. This is hard.

I make my living teaching attorneys how to market. The biggest single obstacle, and critical factor, in this is the attorney's mindset. Many lawyers (and remember, I am a lawyer -- in fact, I practiced in Philadelphia, where Dechert is based) are trained to believe that marketing is beneath them, that good attorneys do not need to market themselves, and consequently, are often extremely reluctant to engage in business development. Sadly, this point of view is typically the exception rather than the rule.

This, of course, is a mistaken belief. Marketing is an essential part of every lawyer's toolkit. A lawyer is an entrepreneur, and is basically his or her own small business. Every business must have customers. And the lawyer must do whatever needs doing to keep business coming in.

Your firm now has thirteen associates who have learned this lesson the (very) hard way.  This presents an extraordinary opportunity for your firm and the lawyers involved.

These lawyers have been exposed firsthand to the market.  They are personally experiencing the consequences that arise when a firm (or for that matter, an individual lawyer) fails to develop business.  Although in one way or another every lawyer is affected by market conditions, these people are seeing it firsthand.

Consequently, they have an enormous incentive to become business developers.  My suggestion is this: rather than simply assigning them to new practice groups, work with your business development department to train him and then get them out there developing business for Dechert.  Some will not make it.  But those that do will be incredible sources of new business for the firm far into the future. Your firm can certainly afford to do this. Your business development and marketing professionals are first-rate.

The alternative you seem to have chosen - reassignment to other practice groups - sends exactly the wrong message.  The firm is telling its associates then they are not responsible for developing their own client base.  Someone else will take care of it.  All a good lawyer needs to do is practice law. 

This is not true, and a management team that sends this message is doing a disservice to both the firm and the attorneys involved.  Rather than simply reshuffling your org chart, consider this situation an opportunity to train and motivate a unique, focused group of business developers that will be an asset to Dechert for years to come. They can still practice, and can still be attached to other practice groups. But having seen what the market can do, with some support and help from the firm, they can and will become great sources of new clients. Use this to your advantage -- and theirs.

Very truly yours,

Peter Darling

How to Create a Powerpoint Presentation That Absolutely Kicks Ass

Several of the bloggers I read all the time, such as Jim Calloway and Tom Kane, have recently posted about how to give a great Powerpoint presentation. Since I just finished teaching a workshop on the topic, I thought I'd add my own take.

As usual, I approach the subject a little differently. Giving a Powerpoint presentation is a skill, like playing tennis or speaking Italian. The single greatest teacher, by a long shot, is experience and practice. Also, everyone has their own way of presenting, and my job as a teacher is to help them discover and nurture it. Therefore, I don't believe in feeding clients a million little thou-shalt-nots about how to present. Instead, I think it's a lot more helpful to teach them the underlying principles behind presenting in general, and then help them discover and refine their own technique.

Here, then, are the Sacred Seven Principles For Creating A Powerpoint Presentation That Absolutely Kicks Ass.

1. Your audience is only going to remember a few things. Almost all presentations are packed with way, way too much detail. The human memory and attention span is more than a little flawed, and there is no way anyone is going to remember more than about six things from your presentation. Think very carefully about what those six things are going to be.
2. You only have about twenty minutes of free attention. After that, if your audience isn't interested in what you're telling them, they will mentally check out, and you will not get them back. You have to give them a series of reasons to pay attention. Just being in the room and forced to watch isn't one of them.
3. Interaction is everything. The idea is not to have your audience sit there mutely while you pour information into their waiting minds. A great presentation is a participatory exercise -- everyone takes part, and everyone wins.
4. Nothing every works flawlessly. The technical guy is your new best friend. Murphy's Law was written for Powerpoint presentations. Be prepared for something to go very wrong, and have expert help at hand, along with a contingency plan.
5. You know a lot more than your audience does. Many people wake up sobbing in fear at the idea of having to deliver a presentation, because they're afraid of being humiliated or challenged by their audience. This isn't likely, and if it happens, it won't work, because you almost always know a lot more than your audience. Farewell, stage fright.
6. You must create and provide structure. The old saying "Tell them what you're going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you've told them" is absolutely right. Your audience needs to know how what you're saying fits together. Make it crystal-clear, and repeat it.
7. Your audience is there to listen to you, not to look at your slides. The slides are simply an accent, a decoration, if you will. They want to hear you, and feel like they connected with you. Don't let them down.

We'll See -- The Buddha on Business Development

I've been reading a lot about Buddhism lately (bet you haven't read many sentences that start that way lately) and the fascinating thing is the relentless focus Buddhists have on understanding what's really going on. Which means that what you think is going on may not be right at all. The point of much of Buddhism is awareness -- being fully present in the moment, and paying complete attention to what is happening right now. That, in a sentence, is the secret to marketing.

Professionals, particularly attorneys, are trained in process. There is one way to do something -- say, draft a brief -- and there is already precedent for everything you want to do. Someone's already done it. You just need to do it slightly better, or for a slightly longer time, and fame and fortune will be yours. Get a grade that' s just slightly better than the next guy, and you're on the Law Review. You get the job. You make partner, etc.

And increasingly, as Seth Godin points out in a recent blog post, modern life works that way, too. We're trained to be helpless. You can't fix your own laptop. You can't do your own taxes. You can't understand who to vote for without some help from a pundit. As I write this (in Chicago's Midway Airport) my flight is 90 minutes late, and there is absolutely nothing I can do to get myself home. Except sit here.

Except, of course, when it comes to business development. The market doesn't care about precedent, theories, or the way it's always been done. Nobody's going to do it for you. You can learn and follow all the so-called rules, and they will get you just exactly nowhere. The market cares about what it cares about, and it's your job, as a business developer, to understand what your market wants, and deliver it. Which means experimenting. And being willing to think about what's actually going on, rather than what you wish was going on, or what appears to be going on. There's a great Buddhist parable about this way of thinking:

There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit.

"Such bad luck," they said sympathetically. "We'll see," the farmer replied.     

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses.

"How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed.          

"We'll see," replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.          

"We'll see," answered the farmer.The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.          

"We'll see," said the farmer.

This kind of thinking is the exact opposite of what lawyers are trained to do. Which is why I have a business. At least so far. We'll see.

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

One. That's right, one. 1. Not Two. One thing to do in a pitch meeting.

In a post a few days ago, Larry Bodine reprinted Stacy Clark's list of 19 tips for preparing for a pitch meeting. Basically, they boil down to:

• Do your homework
• Ask questions about what the prospect wants
• Follow up

All good, all useful. Lists like this are mainly designed to help attorneys avoid sins of omission -- they're like preflight checklists. You know, #8? Look for spinach in teeth, and remove if present. And so on.

However, in point of fact, these items aren't things the prospect is going to notice. He may, however, notice if you forget or fail to do them. These tips, really, are a list of mistakes to avoid.

But what can you do that will set you apart? What can you do that will get you noticed? Easy. There is an almost-bulletproof tactic for this, that I learned from a senior salesperson almost ten years ago.

Stacy's list has 19 tips. Mine has one. Just one. 1. You know, more than zero and less than two?

Here's what you do. Assuming you have followed Stacy's list, not tripped on the carpet, demonstrated you have done your homework and so on, there's going to come a point when the conversation shifts from chitchat and preliminaries to the real purpose of the meeting. And when this happens, say something like this:

"Well, Mr. Prospect, obviously, we've prepared pretty carefully for this meeting, and we have a lot of material we'd like to share with you. However, in order to make sure that this time is as productive as possible, could you please take a minute, and tell us what you want to get out of this meeting?"

Simple as that. Let them tell you what they want. Ask a few followup questions to clarify. Then, make sure you deliver it, and afterwards, refer to what they said they want and ask them if they got it.

This is incredibly powerful, because it allows the prospect to appear to be the one running the meeting, or at least setting the agenda. It also allows you to find out what really matters to them, and to go after it first. Rather than sitting there grinding through a prepared presentation, you're letting them structure the conversation, and you can begin it by addressing their key issues.

This tactic has several advantages. First, it makes a strong statement, right up front, that you are client-focused. Second, it allows you to lead with your strongest (to the client) capability. Third, it gets the client's attention -- not a lot of people ask this question.

Four out of five times, the prospect will say something like "Well, I'd like to acquire an understanding of your firm." Fine. Then probe. Say something like "Great. We're prepared to respond to that. Is there any special aspect of our practice that's particularly important to you?" Then find out, and tell them.

General Patton's Marketing Secret

"A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week."
-General George S. Patton.

Great post today from Pamela Slim, authoress of Escape from Cubicle Nation. I have never read her blog before, but it's terrific, and I'm going to be reading it from now on. She also has a great name, by the way. Her advice: when figuring out how to market a service, use an approach that you personally enjoy.

There's a lot more to this advice than meets the eye. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that they have to adopt whatever approach works best, and they don't stop to consider that they're actually going to have to be the ones doing it. Day after day after day, they need to bring a lot of enthusiasm, energy and creativity to their marketing. If they dislike it, that's basically impossible. They're going to procrastinate, go through the motions, and ultimately, never really get out of low gear.

In the end, perhaps, it's more important to figure out an approach to marketing that works for you. Do you enjoy it? Are you good at it? Can you bring some creativity to it? Can you, finally, own it? In her post, she puts it this way:

Choose a couple of marketing methods and really work them. Your criteria for selection should be A) has the greatest likelihood of getting you the results you want and B) is the most fun and energizing to do.

It's a lot like thinking straight about getting married, or choosing a college. It doesn't matter if your choice is "the best". There isn't any "best." There is, however, best for you. And in the case of marketing, best for you means something you will willingly, passionately execute right now, instead of next week, which in reality, means never.